“So you came back,” I say.
“So I came back.” Her smile turns wry. “Guess I ended up needing the very place I was running from. Makes sense, right?”
“More than you think.” I turn down a country road, no destination in mind, just wanting to keep her talking. “You grew up here. Your brother’s here. Your friends.”
“What about you?” she asks. “I remember your rookie year. My father talked about you sometimes—said you had raw talent but needed discipline.”
I snort. “That’s a polite way of putting it. I was a cocky asshole who thought I knew everything.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m a slightly less cocky asshole who knows I don’t know everything.” I glance at her, catching her smile.
“What changed? I mean, I have to admit, I’ve heard about your… escapades. It seems like you kind of liked the wild life.”
And I instantly appreciate her directness. She isn’t wrong. I easily spent a decade riding, drinking, and fucking my way around the circuit. I was a no-name kid from the back roads of Kentucky, and fuck if the fame didn’t go right to my head. If I hadn’t royally fucked up a year ago, who knows where I’d be.
“I got in some trouble with the APBRA last year. Nothing illegal, just… stupid decisions and too much ego.”
“I kind of remember the scandal,” she says. “A certain company’s daughter?”
I don’t miss the curiosity.
“Something like that.” I don’t really want to talk about the past, not when the present is so much better. “But they gave me a second chance, and I’ve been trying not to screw it up since.”
“I think you’re doing okay,” she says with a laugh.
“Yeah?” I glance over, half-expecting her to take it back.
“Yeah.” Her lips curve just a little. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. Your last ride was fucking incredible.”
The already charged air between us ramps with her compliment.
“Why a vet?” I ask, and that’s all it takes for her to truly open up.
She starts talking about vet school—the brutal hours, the impossible exams, the night she delivered her first calf andrealized, exhausted and covered in hay, that she loved it. With every word, her guard slips, piece by piece, until I can see the version of her that isn’t trying so hard to stay composed.
I tell her about life on the road—the rush of the arena, the high that fades too fast, and the quiet that follows. I don’t tell her about the loneliness, or the way attention comes in waves—too much one night, gone the next—or how being wanted and being seen are two very different things.
She laughs at something I say, head tipping back, and it hits me how much I like that sound. How her scent’s been slowly taking over the truck, warm and sweet and distracting as hell. It’s all I can taste, all I can think about.
My heart’s beating faster than it should, and I keep catching myself stealing glances at the smooth line of her thigh where her skirt rides up when she shifts in the seat.
I clear my throat, trying to rein myself in before my brain goes somewhere it shouldn’t. “Shit,” I say, checking the clock. “I should feed you.”
“You should,” she agrees, grinning.
“Yeah?” I ask, smiling back. “Any cravings, Doc?”
She laughs. “Something greasy enough to make my arteries regret it.”
“The Salt Lick,” I say, turning the truck around.
The Salt Lick is already packed when we arrive, twenty minutes after dropping Buttercup off at home.
“She’s going to make a scene,” Willa says under her breath.
“Absolutely.” Our eyes meet, and we both bust out laughing. Baby Monroe is a force.
